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An H i absorption distance to the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1535-571

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Authors
Chauhan, Jaiverdhan
Miller-Jones, James
Anderson, Gemma
Raja, W.
Bahramian, Arash
Hotan, A.
Indermuehle, B.
Whiting, M.
Allison, J.R.
Anderson, C.
Bunton, J.
Koribalski, B.
Mahony, E.
Date
2019
Type
Journal Article

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Chauhan, J. and Miller-Jones, J.C.A. and Anderson, G.E. and Raja, W. and Bahramian, A. and Hotan, A. and Indermuehle, B. et al. 2019. An H i absorption distance to the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1535-571. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters. 488 (1): pp. L129-L133.
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
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Faculty of Science and Engineering
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School of Elec Eng, Comp and Math Sci (EECMS)
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This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters ©: 2019 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

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Abstract

With the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) we monitored the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1535-571 over seven epochs from 2017 September 21 to October 2. Using ASKAP observations, we studied the H i absorption spectrum from gas clouds along the line of sight and thereby constrained the distance to the source. The maximum negative radial velocities measured from the H i absorption spectra for MAXI J1535-571 and an extragalactic source in the same field of view are -69 ± 4 and -89 ± 4 km s-1, respectively. This rules out the far kinematic distance (9.3+0.5 -0.6 kpc), giving a most likely distance of 4.1+0.6 -0.5 kpc, with a strong upper limit of the tangent point at 6.7+0.1 -0.2 kpc. At our preferred distance, the peak unabsorbed luminosity of MAXI J1535-571 was >78 per cent of the Eddington luminosity, and shows that the soft-to-hard spectral state transition occurred at the very low luminosity of (1.2-3.4) × 10-5 times the Eddington luminosity. Finally, this study highlights the capabilities of new wide-field radio telescopes to probe Galactic transient outbursts, by allowing us to observe both a target source and a background comparison source in a single telescope pointing.